Clarke: Media focus on 'confrontation'

THE media wrongly concentrate on a `theatre of confrontation' in covering politics, former home secretary Charles Clarke told a fringe meeting. He said: "It is very difficult for members of the public learning about what's going on through the media.

THE media wrongly concentrate on a `theatre of confrontation' in covering politics, former home secretary Charles Clarke told a fringe meeting.

He said: "It is very difficult for members of the public learning about what's going on through the media.

"The drama of the personality, the theatre of confrontation takes on far more significance than any more substantial discussion about issues."

Mr Clarke said he had given a series of speeches on policy, but these had been combed by the media for `coded messages' against Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

He also told the fringe meeting that during the days of Neil Kinnock's leadership 'a string of straight lies' had been told about Labour in the media.

Fellow MP Denis MacShane told the meeting that 'the constant untruths and four-star porkies' told in the media about the European Community 'deforms and debases the debate about international relationships'.

But Andrew Gilligan, who as a reporter at the BBC exposed the government's allegedly `sexed up' dossier on Iraq, said: "Journalists have laptops and expense accounts. Governments have the Army, the Navy, the Air Force - that's who is calling the shots."

Journalists were sometimes 'led by the nose' by politicians, he said, and Britain's libel laws are so strict they have stifled controversial stories.

Recalling the 'dodgy' dossier on Iraq, Mr Gilligan said: "That dossier was something no journalist would ever have tried to get away with. It was the rough equivalent of a reporter writing a front page news story based on something your minicab driver heard down the pub."

On the subject of the meeting - Who calls the shots: politicians or journalists? - Mr Gilligan said: "We may have the power to expose facts but only the government have the power to change facts."